Robert Crowe is a male soprano of nearly twenty-five years’ solo performing experience, with over 70 operatic and dramatic oratorio roles to his credit. The first male soprano to be a national winner of the Metropolitan Opera competition, he has performed leading roles at all three German Handel festivals, the National Theater of Mannheim, the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the State Operas of Munich and Berlin as well as solo concerts and operatic roles in venues in Europe, North America and India.
While maintaining a full singing schedule, he began his PhD studies at Boston University in historical musicology in 2012, specializing in the life, times and music of the last operatic castrato, Giambattista Velluti. He has presented papers or lecture recitals at Tosc@Bolgona, 2015, American Musicological Society, Milwaukee 2014, International Conference on Baroque Music, Salzburg 2014 and the Biennial Conference on Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Cardiff, 2013.
Simon Harden was born in Dublin and has lived in Berlin, Hamburg and Paris. At present, he holds a Lecturer position in Organ at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama in Dublin. Before returning to Dublin in 2015, he worked as Organist and ‘Kantor’ in several parts of Germany, most recently in the Anglican church in Frankfurt and the Christuskirche in Bad Vilbel. He pursues a busy career as a performer with regular concert engagements taking him throughout Europe and Japan. Recent recitals in 2016 have been in Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame in Paris.
He began his studies at Trinity College Dublin reading Music and History of Art. At that time he began to learn the organ with Gerard Gillen and later with Peter Sweeney. Further studies at the Music Academies in Berlin (Leo van Doeselaar) and Hamburg (Wolfgang Zerer) led to a first-class Postgraduate degree in performance in 2004. Two years studying french music in Paris (Eric Lebrun) gained him a ‘Premier Prix’ in 2006. On receiving a scholarship from the City of Hamburg, Simon returned to complete the ‘Konzertexamen’ – the highest award for performance in Germany – with Wolfgang Zerer and Pieter van Dijk.
During his studies, Simon won 1st prize and audience prize at the ‘International Schnitger Organ Competition’ in Alkmaar, Holland 2007 and in October 2006 2nd prize at the Swiss International Organ Competition ‘Grand Prix Bach de Lausanne’. In December 2006 he was selected from all the instrumental students at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg to receive the DAAD prize for ‘outstanding performance and intercultural involvement’. As well as his solo recitals, Simon has appeared with RTÉ National Symphony and Concert Orchestras. He is active as a writer on new and historic organs, writing regularly for the international publication ‘Choir and Organ’.